Tag Archives: James Spica

Attorney James Spica Elected a Trustee of the American Trust for the British Library

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Dickinson Wright PLLC is pleased to announce that Attorney James Spica has been elected a Trustee of the American Trust for the British Library.

The American Trust for the British Library is a not-for-profit organization whose purpose is to promote and support the work of one of the world’s greatest research libraries. Formally separated from the British Museum in 1973, the British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and the largest library in the world by number of items catalogued. The American Trust for the British Library was founded in 1979 and is supported through the generosity of its wide membership in the United States and the United Kingdom. Mr. Spica was elected to the Trust’s Board at its 2016 Annual Meeting held on October 17, 2016 at the Century Association in New York City.

Spica is a Member in Dickinson Wright’s Detroit office. He specializes in trust law and trust banking. He is the principal author of the Michigan Personal Property Trust Perpetuities Act of 2008 and of the multi-statute Michigan “trust decanting” regime enacted in 2012. He is an American Bar Association (ABA) Advisor to the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, a Fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC), a member of the ACTEC State Laws Committee, a past member of the Council (governing body) of the Probate and Estate Planning Section of the State Bar of Michigan (2006-2015), and a current member of the Probate and Estate Planning Advisory Board of the Michigan Institute of Continuing Legal Education. He clerked for the Honorable Richard C. Wilbur on the United States Tax Court (1985) and taught jurisprudence, taxation, trusts, and decedents’ estates as an Assistant/Associate Professor of Law at the University of Detroit Mercy (1989-2000, tenured 1996).

Apart from the American Trust for the British Library, Mr. Spica’s bibliophilic associations include the Associates Board of Governors of the William L. Clements Library at the University of Michigan, the Board of Directors of the Grosse Pointe Library Foundation, the Grolier Club of New York, the Classical Association of New England, the Johnson Society of London, the Selden Society, and the Virgil Society. His service on non-profit boards and board advisory committees also includes the Board of the Interlochen Center for the Arts (which he has represented in the Harvard Business School’s Governing Nonprofits for Excellence program), the Tannahill Council of the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s Planned Giving Council, and the Legal-Financial Network Committee of the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan.

About the American Trust for the British Library

The American Trust for the British Library raises funds to support acquisitions, conservation, and other important projects at the British Library. Recent grants have supported the British Library’s Conservation Center, an art history internship for a Ph.D. candidate from Harvard University, and the Eccles Center for American Studies. To learn more about American Trust for the British Library, please click here.

About Dickinson Wright PLLC

Dickinson Wright PLLC is a general practice business law firm with more than 425 attorneys among more than 40 practice areas and 16 industry groups. Headquartered in Detroit and founded in 1878, the firm has seventeen offices, including six in Michigan (Detroit, Troy, Ann Arbor, Lansing, Grand Rapids, and Saginaw) and ten other domestic offices in Austin, Texas; Columbus, Ohio; Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.; Lexington, Ky.; Nashville and Music Row, Tenn.; Las Vegas and Reno, Nev.; Phoenix, Ariz.; and Washington, D.C. The firm’s Canada office is located in Toronto.

Dickinson Wright offers clients a distinctive combination of superb client service, exceptional quality, value for fees, industry expertise and business acumen. As one of the few law firm with ISO/IEC 27001:2013 certification, Dickinson Wright has built state-of-the-art, independently-verified risk management controls and security processes for our commercial transactions. Dickinson Wright lawyers are known for delivering commercially-oriented advice on sophisticated transactions and have a remarkable record of wins in high-stakes litigation. Dickinson Wright lawyers are regularly cited for their expertise and experience by Chambers, Best Lawyers, Super Lawyers, and other leading independent law firm evaluating organizations.

Dickinson Wright Attorney James Spica Published in ACTEC Law Journal

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An article by Dickinson Wright Attorney James P. Spica, entitled “Means to an End,” appears in the most recent issue of The ACTEC Law Journal, the scholarly journal of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel.

The article concerns electively forcing future interests to vest, under the laws of states that have enacted liberal perpetuities reform, in order to comply with federal tax rules against perpetuities. Mr. Spica, an ACTEC Fellow, is a nationally recognized authority on the article’s subject, having drafted the perpetuities reform proposal enacted as the Michigan Personal Property Trust Perpetuities Act of 2008, having published several articles on tax rules against perpetuities in the American Bar Association’s (ABA’s) Real Property, Trust and Estate Law Journal (2006, 2009, and 2013) as well as The Wayne Law Review (2014), and having spoken on the rule against perpetuities in estate planning as a featured speaker, sponsored by Brown Brothers Harriman Trust Company, at the North Carolina Bar Association’s 34th Annual Estate Planning and Fiduciary Law Program (2013) and as a regular member of the faculty of the Annual Probate and Estate Planning Institute of the Michigan Institute of Continuing Legal Education (ICLE).

In addition to being a member of the ACTEC State Law Committee, Mr. Spica is the ABA Advisor to the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws’ Drafting Committee on Divided Trusteeships, a member of the Michigan ICLE Probate and Estate Planning Advisory Board, and a recent past member (2006-2015) of the Council (governing body) of the Probate and Estate Planning Section of the State Bar of Michigan. He clerked for Hon. Richard C. Wilbur on the United States Tax Court (1985) and taught taxation, trusts, and decedents’ estates as an Assistant/Associate Professor of Law at the University of Detroit Mercy (1989-2000, tenured 1996).

About Dickinson Wright PLLC
Dickinson Wright PLLC is a general practice business law firm with more than 400 attorneys among more than 40 practice areas. Headquartered in Detroit and founded in 1878, the firm has fifteen offices, including six in Michigan (Detroit, Troy, Ann Arbor, Lansing, Grand Rapids, and Saginaw) and eight other domestic offices in Columbus, Ohio; Lexington, Ky.; Nashville, Tenn. (2); Las Vegas, Nev.; Phoenix, Ariz.; Reno, Nev.; and Washington, D.C. The firm’s Canada office is located in Toronto.

The firm offers clients a distinctive combination of superb client service and exceptional quality. Dickinson Wright lawyers are known for delivering commercially-oriented advice on sophisticated transactions and have a remarkable record of wins in high-stakes litigation. Dickinson Wright lawyers are regularly cited by Chambers, Best Lawyers, Super Lawyers, and other leading independent law firm evaluating organizations.

Attorney James Spica Addresses Regional Conference of the American College of Trusts and Estates Counsel

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TROY, Mich., December 18, 2015 – On Saturday, December 12, 2015, Dickinson Wright Attorney James P. Spica addressed the Great Lakes Regional Conference of the American College of Trusts and Estates Counsel (ACTEC) in Chicago as a member of the Conference’s CLE faculty. Mr. Spica’s topic was Michigan’s “trust-decanting” legislation, a subject on which he is eminently qualified to speak as the principal author of the tripartite decanting regime enacted as 2012 Michigan Public Acts Nos. 483, 484, and 485. He also authored an article on the subject published by the American Bar Association (ABA): “Spilt to Last: Longevity Planning for Tax Advantaged Trusts under a New Statutory Decanting Regime in Michigan,” 48 Real Prop. Tr. & Est. L.J. 35 (2013).

Mr. Spica, an ACTEC Fellow, is a member of the ACTEC State Laws Committee. He is the ABA Advisor to the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws’ Drafting Committee on Divided Trusteeship and served on the ad hoc committee of the ABA Real Property, Trust and Estate Law Section that drafted the Section’s response to the Treasury Department’s request (IRS Notice 2011-101) for comments on the tax implications of trust decanting. He is a former member of the Council (governing body) of the Probate and Estate Planning Section of the State Bar of Michigan (2006-2015) and a current member of the Michigan Institute for Continuing Legal Education (ICLE) Probate and Estate Planning Advisory Board. He clerked for Hon. Richard C. Wilbur on the United States Tax Court (1985) and taught taxation, trusts, and decedents’ estates as an Assistant/Associate Professor of Law at the University of Detroit Mercy (1989-2000, tenured 1996).

As a Member in Dickinson Wright’s Troy office, Mr. Spica focuses his practice on estate and tax planning, trust banking, and trust litigation. In addition to drafting the 2012 Michigan trust-decanting legislation mentioned above, he was the principal author of the perpetuities reform proposal enacted as the Michigan Personal Property Trust Perpetuities Act of 2008. Listed in The Best Lawyers in America, Michigan Super Lawyers, Leading Lawyers and DBuisiness’ Top Lawyers, he is a coauthor of the Michigan Estate Planning Handbook (2nd ed. 2006 & Supp.) and Trust Administration Under the Michigan Trust Code (2010 & Supp.), both published by ICLE. His most recent article is “Means to an End: Electively Forcing Vesting to Suit Tax Rules Against Perpetuities,” 40 ACTEC L.J. 347 (2014).

ACTEC is a nonprofit association of lawyers established in 1949. Its members are elected to the College by demonstrating the highest level of integrity, commitment to the profession, competence and experience as trust and estate counselors. Membership in ACTEC is by election of the regents of the College. Individual lawyers meeting the criteria for membership are nominated for membership by fellows of the College, and subjected to careful review by both state and national membership selection committees, prior to consideration by the regents of the College. To learn more about ACTEC, please visit www.actec.org.

About Dickinson Wright PLLC
Dickinson Wright PLLC is a general practice business law firm with more than 400 attorneys among more than 40 practice areas. Headquartered in Detroit and founded in 1878, the firm has fifteen offices, including six in Michigan (Detroit, Troy, Ann Arbor, Lansing, Grand Rapids, and Saginaw) and eight other domestic offices in Columbus, Ohio; Lexington, Ky.; Nashville, Tenn. (2); Las Vegas, Nev.; Phoenix, Ariz.; Reno, Nev.; and Washington, D.C. The firm’s Canada office is located in Toronto.

The firm offers clients a distinctive combination of superb client service and exceptional quality. Dickinson Wright lawyers are known for delivering commercially-oriented advice on sophisticated transactions and have a remarkable record of wins in high-stakes litigation. Dickinson Wright lawyers are regularly cited by Chambers, Best Lawyers, Super Lawyers, and other leading independent law firm evaluating organizations.